The computing industry has seen many advances in recent years, and such advances have produced a multitude products and services. Internet websites are examples of products and services, which are created to give users access to particular types of services, data, or searching capabilities. The providers of the Internet websites are increasingly adapting online advertising for generating revenue.
The Internet has emerged as an attractive new medium for advertisers of information, products and services (“advertisers”) to reach not only consumers in general, but also to enable increased capabilities to identify and target specific groups of consumers based on their preferences, characteristics or behaviors. However, the Internet is composed of an unlimited number of sites dispersed across millions of different computer systems all over the world, and so advertisers face the daunting task of locating and targeting the specific groups or subgroups of consumers who are potentially interested in their information, products and/or services. These efforts are well worth their reward; however, as a well placed advertisement on a high traffic website may produce as many views as conventional print or television advertising. Even more important than just placing an Internet advertisement is the ability to target consumers who will actually observe and appreciate the content. Advertisers get far more “bang for their buck” by targeting advertisements, and are therefore willing to pay more money for this type of ad placement.
A common way for advertisers to target particular users is to purchase advertising space on a particular site. For example, many sites sell advertising space for banner ads. Banner ads are graphical images that are used on Web sites to advertise information, products or services. Banner ads usually conform to a standard size as agreed upon by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, or IAB (such as 460 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall). The use of a standard size enables developers to design a site that allows for the interchangeability of ads and also allows advertisers to use the same banner ad repeatedly. Typically, banner ads are sold per “impression,” which is a particular instance of a banner. Unfortunately, traditional banner advertisement price structures are geared for advertisers seeking large audiences. In most cases, advertisers sell banner ad space per 1,000 impressions, leaving consumers and small business owners paying for needless impressions.
Current banner ads provide a limited way for advertisers to perform targeted marketing. For example, advertisers may be able to target specific users by choosing a site whose visitors' demographic information most closely matches the advertiser's targeted audience. Additionally, advertisers may determine a user's interest in certain areas from a user's page views or self declared information, such as demographics. However, these methods do not provide a complete view of a user's interests and their likely responses to advertisements. Using pages a user views or user demographic information does not provide an accurate measure as to whether a user would actually click on an advertisement and actually buy a product from the advertiser after clicking on the advertisement. Moreover, demographic information provides no guarantee that specific users exhibiting those characteristics actually see an advertisement.
It is within this context that embodiments of the invention arise.